Ungrateful Fork

Monday, November 14, 2011

By Martin Myall

When you have just finished eating in a communal dining hall; i.e., one provided by a NGO (charity), you don’t just leave your used utensils on the table; you would be expected, for example, to at least remove them, placing your dirty knife and fork somewhere, ready for washing, or even washing them yourself, but what you do not do is imbed your fork in one of the volunteer’s head. Read on…

It was nine in the evening in Granada and the ‘soup kitchen’ was full of hungry people, unfortunate enough not to be able to feed themselves – something that is far from uncommon in these worsening times. There were at least 40 sin techos or ‘homeless’ diners present.

Whilst the volunteers were trying to prepare the food, get everybody seated and served, an argument broke out between two diners. So, a volunteer – somebody who gives up their free time to help those less fortunate than themselves – goes over to the table in an attempt to pacify the squabble.

Before you could say, “Peace be amongst you,” one of the two ‘combatants’ has him by the neck and is attempting to throttle him on the ground. Now, things are not going very well for the volunteer that particular evening, but they are set to deteriorate further, because the girlfriend of the aggressor decides that the volunteer needs a spot of cranial perforation and stabs him repeatedly in the head with her generously provided fork.

Torn between finishing their hot food or letting it go cold – or somebody stealing it whilst they are not looking – several diners decided that the grub would have to wait and prized the aggressor off the volunteer’s throat and the fork out of the bloody woman’s hand.

The police were summoned and on hearing what was happening, decided that two patrol cars full of officers would be better than one, so they screeched up and arrested the 46-year-old aggressor and his 26-year-old girlfriend. Both of the the arrested people had a curriculum of the police variety.

The perforated volunteer was taken to hospital – if he was still wearing the fork, we are not sure – and was patched up but kept in for observation.

As for the other diners, they were herded out because there were 40 sets of cutlery on the table that were just a touch too handy for the likes of the police. However, as some hadn’t finished their food – distracted as they were by the screaming volunteer with the culinary cranial feature – they were not happy. In fact, one policeman had to be attended by medical staff because of an injury to his arm.